Dawson Jurovich grew his hair for two years before donating it to Wigs for Kids B.C. to help other youth with cancer.

Alex Walker was just 16 years old when she started feeling pain in her chest so bad it woke her up at night. She went to the doctor and got an X-ray, and that’s when her whole life changed.

“The doctor told me they found a tumour about the size of two fists in the centre of my chest,” she said in an interview with The Province. “It was pretty serious at that point.”

Alex underwent a gruelling regime of chemotherapy at B.C. Children’s Hospital — nine rounds of chemo over seven months. It was hard on her physically and it was hard on her mentally.

“I was always very active and being with my friends, and just a social person,” Alex said. “It was hard to all of a sudden be in a bed for seven months straight.”

Perhaps the hardest thing the teen had to deal with was the loss of her hair — the symbol of identity and personality for so many young women.

Getting a wig changed Alex’s life and helped her escape the identity of cancer victim.

“When I started losing my hair, I wanted to avoid it as much as I could,” Alex said. “I just put a toque over my head and I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to address it. I knew I was losing my hair. I could see it. My mom was trying to tiptoe around the topic of ‘maybe you should shave your hair,’ but I just didn’t want to. Then one day I just decided to have a couple of my close friends to my room and have the nurses over and just try to make (cutting the hair) a positive experience … It was really traumatic, and it was really sad.”

Shaving off her hair was the moment Alex had to really confront what was happening to her and how drastically her life had changed.

“To me, it was that moment when I looked in the mirror and for the first time everything became a reality. It was the moment that I realized I was sick and that this was real and that I had cancer.”

A social worker at B.C. Children’s suggested she get a wig, and it was a comment that changed Alex’s life yet again. She connected with Wigs for Kids B.C., a volunteer organization that helps out patients at the hospital. She picked a wig and was able to reclaim some of her identity, to go from being Alex the cancer sufferer to Alex the teenager again.

“One of the things that meant so much to me when I was sick was to be able to go to school,” Alex said. “I wore (the wig) everywhere. I wore it to school. I wore it to see my friends. I even wore it around the hospital. It was very important to me because I was no longer identified as a sick person, a cancer patient. I was just me. It was my escape from the hospital life and my escape from cancer.”

Alex is hardly alone in her story. Wigs for Kids B.C. has been helping people like her for 10 years, and they’re closing in on raising a million dollars for kids in need since they started the program.

It began with a group of Richmond women who called themselves the Ya-Yas. They heard of a high school cancer patient in their community who was upset about losing her hair before graduation. The group banded together to raise funds to buy her a wig, which helped the teen to attend her graduation ceremony.

Bev Friesen is pictured with hair donations for Wigs for Kids B.C.

“We put together a silent auction at the community centre in Steveston,” said Bev Friesen, the chairwoman of the program. “We raised $24,000. We were trying to raise $2,000 at the time — that’s what the wigs cost. I thought, oh dear, what am I going to do with all this extra money? So I phoned the hospital and asked if they had a program and they said no, but (they) would really like one.”

The one-off charity event turned into Wigs For Kids B.C., which has helped countless families over the years. Its mission has expanded to also help cover the costs of feeding supplies and related medicines after children are well enough to go home but still dealing with the effects of chemo.

“(The costs) are approximately $1,200 a month, so a lot of families are struggling with this,” Friesen said. “We had one letter from a family who said they were maxing out their credit cards and putting a second mortgage on their home just to keep their child alive.”

Wigs for Kids B.C. is getting a lot of help from the community. The group’s Facebook page is full of community fundraisers and posts about children donating their hair to make wigs that will help other youths.

Dawson Jurovich, who is just eight years old, grew his hair for two years before cutting it off and donating it to Wigs for Kids B.C.

It wasn’t exactly an easy process for Dawson — he often got mistaken for a girl when playing hockey, his favourite sport.

“It was very tiring to hear people say ‘brush your hair,’” the cheerful youth said during an interview at his Vancouver home. Thankfully, he is back to short hair now — although the change meant some of his friends didn’t recognize him right away.

“Everyone thought I was a new student,” Dawson said.

In addition to donating his hair for a wig, Dawson also raised nearly $3,000 for Wigs for Kids B.C.

“I would just feel bad if I was sick or one of my family or friends was sick,” Dawson said.

As it turns out, Dawson is following a family tradition when it comes to donating to Wigs for Kids B.C. His two sisters also cut their hair for the cause in Grade 1, as did his mother, Kari.

“Ever since the kids were born, in lieu of a gift we asked for children’s donation pledges through Sunny Bear,” said Kari. One thing led to another and the hospital foundation connected the family with Wigs for Kids B.C.

Wigs for Kids has raised more than $800,000 since it began and the organizers are hoping to hit the $1-million mark in donations this year. Friesen stressed that every dollar the group raises goes directly to cancer patients.

“We don’t have any money coming out of what’s donated going anywhere else except to the wigs, the feeding supplies and certain cancer medications that aren’t covered by MSP,” she said. “We’re all volunteers. We have no overhead.”

People who want to help can drop off hair donations at B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation. Friesen said Wigs for Kids B.C. is also encouraging people to collect pledges because that helps them pay for the wigs.

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